Database consolidation involves distributing and sharing computer resources of a hardware platform among multiple databases. Techniques have been developed, for example, where multiple distinct “pluggable databases” can be contained in a single “container database”. Such techniques are described, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/202,091, filed Mar. 10, 2014, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein.
The container database is managed by a container database management system (“container DBMS”). Each pluggable database within the container database is defined by its own separate database dictionary and is isolated to an extent from other pluggable databases within the container database.
Unfortunately, even though the container DBMS may be aware of the separation between the pluggable databases that it manages, entities external to the container DBMS do not share this awareness. For example, in the interactions between the container DBMS and the operating system and network, the container DBMS may appear to be a single monolithic entity. Thus, the operating system has no way to determine the specific pluggable database involved with any given request for OS resources made by the container DBMS. Similarly, network software has no way to determine the specific pluggable database involved with any given network communication between the container DBMS and other systems.
In addition, security issues may arise when a local user of a pluggable database performs an operation that affects a commonly shared user schema, or affects the entire container database. Finally, there is currently no ability to set database options on a per-pluggable-database basis. Instead, the database options of the container database govern all pluggable databases contained therein.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.